The development of modern digital video technology has enhanced the video quality for consumer electronics such as in DVD players and digital TV (DTV) systems, as compared to analog TV systems. However, significant video enhancement shortcomings remain in digital video systems such as DTV systems, including contrast enhancement, brightness enhancement and detail enhancement.
Post processing for decompressed pictures plays an important role in the quality of any digital video system depending on compression technology. This is because artifacts inherently arise as a result of data quantization in data compression. Examples include blocking artifacts, ringing artifacts, mosquito noise, etc. When a digital image or video has been compressed to a low bit rate, such artifacts are especially annoying.
Conventionally, a low-pass-filter has been used to remove the ringing artifacts from the digital picture. However, the low-pass-filter also removes the picture details which introduces blurring artifacts. There is, therefore, a need for a method of suppressing ringing artifacts that commonly arise in decompressed pictures.